


Into the Evening

by ossseous (ozean)



Series: Moments Stolen [3]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Class Issues, Clothing Kink, Foot Jobs, M/M, Master & Servant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 13:41:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10438920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozean/pseuds/ossseous
Summary: But at the end of the day, it was just another constant in a world full of them.  Days of routines and tasks hardly ever broken.  Except for one evening when Mr. Graves was late.





	

He knew the ticking well.  Long ago it made its home somewhere deep in the back of his thoughts.  It was always a comforting sound, something to drown out just how quiet and still the house got each evening when the staff all fluttered off to their rooms.  Like nuthatches to their nests.

The clock ticked away with an admirable persistence, never faltering from its place on the mantle.  There it had sat long before Credence arrived and there it would likely remain, long after he left.  But that wasn’t a thought he liked to entertain—that one day perhaps someone else would dust around its edges, would fold Mr. Graves’ clothes in tandem with its gentle echo, would focus on it while they helped Mr. Graves into his clothes every morning and then out of them every night.  Perhaps they, like he, would try to use that ceaseless _tap-tap-tap_ of the clock’s escapement to keep their thoughts from wandering away to something dangerous.

But at the end of the day, it was just another constant in a world full of them.  Days of routines and tasks hardly ever broken. 

Except for one evening when Mr. Graves was late.

He had been sitting in the kitchen, the cook having already set aside her dough for the morning and turned out most of the lights.  Credence opted to keep the woodstove burning just enough to keep the room warm and the irons lined atop it hot, the coals glowing little cracks of cherry red behind the grate.  Down there the sound of the clock was muffled, overpowered by the grandfather clock in the foyer, quietly ticking off balance between each strike of its second hand. 

There, he waited for Mr. Graves to return.  He didn’t necessarily need to do anymore ironing after he finished his daily tasks hours before.  But he didn’t want to risk looking idle, waiting patiently for an employer when everyone else in his position seemed to want nothing more than to complain and gossip and seethe for their lack of free time—for their endless desire to be anywhere but where he was.  

So even if he was fussing over clothes that didn’t really need fussing, he did it anyways, switching irons before turning back to press already pressed pleats into a pair of Mr. Graves’ trousers.

“Perhaps we should get one of those electric ones.”

Credence jumped a little, bumping a chair with his shin in the process.  He scrambled to keep it from tipping over, grabbing it just in time to keep it from clattering on the tile and waking up half the house.  He looked over to the doorway to find Mr. Graves, weary and worn and leaning against the frame, expression stopped somewhere in between interested and tired.

“I quite like the sadirons,” he said.  It was a lie, he had burnt his hands too many times to count, some of them leaving little brown splotches of scars, the others disappearing within days.  But the thought of inconveniencing Mr. Graves in anyway didn’t sit well in him.

And Mr. Graves shrugged at that, never having been one to tell Credence how to do the things he did.  Credence carefully returned the iron to the stove before gathering up the clothes and waiting for Mr. Graves to lead the way.

“Sorry to keep you up late,” he said as they wove through the first floor.  Mr. Graves didn’t even glance back at him as he climbed the stairs, the wood groaning underfoot.

“I don’t mind,” he said, far too quietly to be heard.  He followed Mr. Graves up the stairs, eyes fixed on the floor.

 

* * *

 

He bent down, getting to his knees as quietly as he could, careful not to let his foot slip to loudly against the grain of the rug.  It was bad of him, he thought, to do such a thing without permission.  To presume it was something he would even be allowed to do.

But Mr. Graves sat, slightly slouched in the chair that had sat right next to the screen since the first day he set foot into that room.  It never moved to another spot, even if it would’ve looked better by the chest of drawers, or been more functional by the half-moon table against the far wall.  When he cleaned the floor beneath it, he always made sure to place it back exactly where he found it, not an inch off.

He had never actually seen Mr. Graves sit in the chair itself and he didn’t dare do such a thing himself.  It was a wooden thing, likely older than Credence, maybe even older than Mr. Graves, cushioned with subtle green brocade that he liked to run his fingers against as he brushed dust from the window drapes.  It remained mostly empty, but every morning before Mr. Graves woke, he hung the tie and socks he was to wear along the carved top.

Once one of the maids passed by as she swept the hallway, laughing at how carefully he handled each item.  Credence didn’t hear the end of it for days.  He couldn’t enter the kitchen for lunch without the cook getting on him.  She’d start exaggeratingly setting each bowl and pot and vegetable down like it was made of the thinnest glass, earning a raucous of laughs from the maids.  He avoided the kitchen for a couple of days after that, sneaking in after the old woman had slipped off to her room for the evening with a generous share of brandy from the cellar.

But that was in the morning.  The evenings only saw him waiting after he helped Mr. Graves from his coat and vest.  He’d stand patiently as Mr. Graves discarded his shoes, pushing them over for Credence to take down to the laundry room.

But crouched there, at Mr. Graves’ feet, he chanced a glance up.  Legs stretched out and lax, he didn’t look fully asleep.  Instead he had his chin propped on the heel on his palm, eyes shut and brow slack as he seemed to fight off the threat of drifting off altogether—upright and all.  In the quiet of a moment of which only he was witness too, it didn’t seem like such a trespass to reach out to the feet before him.

Were they sore?  Tiredly intimate with the hard marble floors his heavy soles strode across each work day?  Usually Mr. Graves preferred to bathe in the morning whilst Credence readied his clothes, always quick, always as efficient as possible.  Often it seemed he was stepping out almost as soon as he went in. 

But Credence wondered how he’d react if one day he came home to a warm bath, lavender thick in the air, mirrors and glass fogged over with steam.  He tried not to chuckle a little at the thought of Mr. Graves groaning as he slipped his sore joints into the tub.

Careful not to jostle him too much, he unbuttoned the spats, the fabric—with its flecks of mud in need of a clean—slipped free with ease.  He set them aside and turned his attention back down.  He ran a thumb across the cleanest part of his brown brogues, up along the even lines of the laces.  With deft fingers, he pulled them loose, as gently and as little as he could manage.  Working them apart, he eased the tongue free in little tugs.

He let his hand glide back, slipping around the mountains and valleys of his bones, all the way around his ankle.  It radiated an inviting warmth, just beneath the material of his socks.  Of course, he had to cup it, to feel the heat from taught tendons sink into his palm as eased the heel cap off with a little pop.

He slid the shoe free, continuing with the other and gently and discreetly as possible.

He set them side by side, a near little pair ready to be cleaned and polished in the early hours of morning, long before the maids roused from bed or the cook started making breakfast or the birds outside started their trills.

But for the night, well, that was where it meant to end.  He’d stoke the fire before making a subtle exit, a pair of shoes worth far more than his monthly salary clutched to his chest as he made his way to leave them in the laundry room.

He swallowed and knew that Mr. Graves must have finally drifted off to sleep.  He looked up once more, if only to know how soft his face could look once taken over by sleep before he had to rouse him.

But that was a mistake.  He shouldn’t have ventured his eyes up along the line of his leg, over his hip and the faint pinstripe of his vest to land eventually upon his face.  He shouldn’t have assumed his eyes would still be shut.  Not then, not when Mr. Graves had to know all too well about what Credence was certain was burgeoning into an obsession.

Instead he found them open, assessing and dark in the low light.

He didn’t look angry though, which was entirely what Credence would have expected.  But Credence looked away nonetheless, some part of him unwilling to let his eyes linger long enough to explore just what that expression meant.

He beat back any of the trepidation that threatened to take over him, daring him to stay silent, to keep from asking for what he really wanted to ask.

“The socks as well, sir?”

He heard a thick swallow and when he ventured his eyes back up, Mr. Graves gave him a slight nod.

Credence took a deep breath and it felt like every ounce of his will fled him, escaped him somehow.  He worked a hand up one leg, just barely able to fit it beneath the cuff.

What was too far?  What touch would send him hurtling past appropriate and into the realm of the unforgivable?  Just a touch, over the knit of the sock with the fibers catching against his callouses… surely that was fine.  Up along the ribbing where it stretched in the garter’s clasp, the metal warm.  He knew that hidden beneath that fabric was the skin he ached to feel beneath his fingers—the heat he longed to know better than anything, even himself.

He shut out that desire to spiral deeper into his imagination.  It was a dangerous thing that always lurked, ready to pull him down, turn him into nothing more than the mere thought of how it would feel to press his lips to the taught muscle of that calf, to let that leg slide of his shoulder as he pressed in, deep—

He fought back against the twinge that gnawed at him, valiantly thrumming through him, setting each of his nerves alight.  He pulled in a breath, nostrils flaring, hoping the folds in his trousers hid his mounting interest.

He unclipped the garter from the fabric blindly, the hem slipping free with a soft little snap.  Unsupported, the sock slipped down Mr. Graves’ leg.

He finally felt skin, the hairs of his leg softer than he would have thought.  Credence bit his lip and a moment of indulgence led him to follow the sock’s movement down.  He kept his hand cupped, sliding as slowly as he could manage down the back of Mr. Graves’ calf before finally pulling the sock off altogether.

As he reached back up, bunching the trouser leg as he searched for the garter, the other foot moved.

The feeling of fine wool sliding easily against the much coarser fabric of his trousers tugged a sharp jolt from deep within his chest.  He never know what to do with that feeling—it was like his heart might expand and expand until it was too big for his ribs to contain, like each escalating beat of it threatened to be the last.  He didn’t dare to look down, didn’t let himself know the sight of those toes edging up from where his knees dug into the rug, up along the muscle of his thigh.

Any air he had managed to trap in his lungs escaped him in a desperate huff.  He tried his best to focus on nothing beyond his trembling hands.  Particularly not the eager response of his twitching cock or the eyes he knew bore down upon him.  He could feel his pulse, the tempo picking up treacherously pulling throb after painful throb from between his legs.  With a deep inhale, he unlatched the garter, pulling it, letting it slip free of Mr. Graves’ trouser leg.

He set the garter atop the discarded sock and with hesitance guiding his hands, turned his attention to the other.

Mr. Graves inched the foot just the slightest bit higher.  He wasn’t sure how to react, felt nearly frozen under the touch.  Imagining just what his endgame might have been was far beyond any conceivable concept as his mind did nothing but beg and beg for it to keep moving.

But it didn’t.  The foot remained still, the only point of contact between him and Mr. Graves existed in the toes pressed flat against his leg.  The rest of his foot hovered, still in the air between his legs.

Finally, _he_ reached out.  He smoothed his fingers along the arch, all but felt the shudder Mr. Graves tried to hide.  The remnants of it seemed to flutter out in waves.  It echoed through his own nerves, curled up his neck to burst in a searing flush across his cheeks.  He wasn’t brave enough to look, to see if that same splash of color spread out against Mr. Graves’ skin as well.  He wondered, as he brushed his thumb across the hollow of his ankle, dragged it up along the Achilles tendon, if Mr. Graves flushed big and bright.  The kind that spread from his ears down to his shoulders, flooded down inches and inches of pale chest.  Or perhaps he showed nothing more than bright blotches of color in his cheeks, like the little drops of rosé Credence spilled on a freshly washed table cloth one evening months before.

It must have been enough.  Whatever he did—perhaps it was that mere second he let his fingernails scrape along the fabric of his sock, it was enough to spur Mr. Graves into action.  Without any further of that painful, agonizing delay, Mr. Graves pushed his foot the rest of the way up.  Almost quickly, almost like he was taking a leap, like if he didn’t do it then, he never would.  It pulled a sharp, almost painful gasp out of Credence when it finally, mercifully, brushed against his cock.

Credence braced his free hand against the floor, the rug fibers burning against his palm with the motion.  He had to shut his eyes as he let his knees ease just the slightest bit apart.  There just wasn’t anything else he could do.  To leave his eyes open meant seeing that the press of a foot— _his foot_ —against his cock and knowing it was all real.  That Mr. Graves was willingly, knowingly, deliberately pushing the ball of his foot right into the cradle of his legs.  The confines of his clothes never felt more restricting.  When he was younger, every inch of fabric had been a blessing to hide welts and bruises, but as he ached to adjust with each kneading press of his foot into his crotch, he wanted nothing more than to be free of them.  To just know how that foot could feel rubbing against his bare flesh, the wool getting damper and damper with each pass over the head…

But it was just near painful, friction too tight, comfort some wistful dream as Mr. Graves refused to relent.  Credence fought the impulse to drop forward and let his forehead rest against the knob of Mr. Graves’ knee, to ride out those angling sparks of pleasure that coursed up and down every limb until, without any indication that he wished to push Credence over into a seize of agony, Mr. Graves paused.

He didn’t know quite how long he had been panting, the sound of it filtering past the quiet mantra of _please_ that hummed just under his thoughts.  He was on the verge of opening his eyes, to find out if he had cross the line, when Mr. Graves pressed his foot along the entire length of him.

Before he could reign back control Credence thrust up into that arch.  All he could think was how perfect it was, as though it had been made to fit snug and warm around his cock.  He found himself at that line, dangling and swaying back and forth between not enough and too far.  His fingers scrambled at Mr. Graves’ calf, bunching the fine material tight to guide his leg down as he ground up on some depraved instinct to seek out anything Mr. Graves might relinquish to him. 

Through the haze of caught breathe and the darkness of his shut eyes, he wished nothing more than for the power to just stop.  If he went too far, if he swung out over that line, he felt certain he would scare Mr. Graves away.  Or worse, earn his seething loathing.  That the foot would come up, kick him square in the chest and into the floor, grind him down to a dust.

But the kick didn’t come.  The muscle beneath his fingers tightening before grinding back down and Credence groaned, the sound yanking out of him much louder than he ever could have expected it too.  So many years of modulating his voice, making it small, soft, as unimposing as possible.  But the sound that slipped from the clench of his teeth was anything but.

Part of him wanted to beg and plead for release, to know that experience of perfect freedom from his thoughts, his feelings, his own self.  To be completely divorced from his existence, if only for those scant seconds of time.  But it warred with the little voice that told him to make it last as long as possible, to drag it out and know it all in full, to constantly chase after it, to forever know nothing more than that itch of euphoria.

But he didn’t stand a chance, not when Mr. Graves leveled him with a massaging rhythm, the grind of his foot bordering on painful.

A sound cut through it all.  For a moment, he thought he had made the sound.  The sharp inhale, the shaky breath that followed.  But it was too languid, too drawn out.  The realization forced his eyes to fly open, and as if on instinct, they sought out Mr. Graves’ own.

To find them—hooded and regarding him with searing interest—only helped to unravel him.  Credence gasped out, air emptying almost painfully from his chest, the sound wet and shaking out through a slack jaw.  He tilted his head back and chased after each pulse of pleasure that stuttered through him.

The first intrusion pushing him into the present came from the clock, the sound of its gentle ticking finding its way through his breaths as they slowly evened out.

Then the rest world around him slid back into focus.  The last pops and cracks of the dying fire.  The dim light that hummed from the table lamp.  Mr. Graves, the only sign of tension in the white knuckled grip he kept on the arms of the chair. 

He loosened his hold on Mr. Graves’ calf.  He could feel the garter beneath the fabric, the metal clasp biting through the flesh of his hand before his dropped his hand altogether.

Perhaps he should’ve been more subtle, but exhaustion seemed to leech that propriety out of him altogether.  So, he eyed Mr. Graves’ lap, biting his lip at what he found.  His hand twitched, almost in reflex at the sight of the hard outline of his cock straining against his trousers.  Credence moved, sliding closer between Mr. Graves’ legs, mind turning around images and images of what his cock would feel like in his hand.  Heavy and warm, he thought.  Blood pulsing, muscle twitching, skin stretched taught in an aching need that Credence would quickly and lovingly ease for him.  He needed to know how he would taste on his tongue.  Or how much he could fit down his throat before his body rebelled against the slick slide of his cock past his lips.  But before he could even lift himself up, seek out the answer to those questions that chipped away at him, Mr. Graves spoke.

“That’ll be all, Credence.”

It was a mix of emotion.  That slight flutter that bounced around inside of him whenever he heard his name on Mr. Graves’ lips.  But mixed in with a sinking and unwelcome understanding that he wasn’t going to know that taste.

He shut his eyes tight.  It could be worse, he thought.  So much worse.  “Yes, sir.”

He did his best to ignore the rumpled state of his trousers and the wet patch at the crease of his thigh.  Gathering the discarded shoes, he stood and walked to the door.  He hesitated, only for a moment.

“Goodnight, Mr. Graves,” he said, not even turning.

“Goodnight, Credence.”

He left, shutting the door behind him with a soft click.

**Author's Note:**

> Hahaha, I like to think of this series as the “Credence getting braver and braver for the sake of dick” series lol. Also honestly I warred with myself for a long time whether I should called them "socks" or "hose." A few sources I've seen said they called socks hose back then, but advertisements from the 20s call them socks? So I went with socks.
> 
> PS, I think we all know what Graves is gonna be doing behind that door. Maybe I’ll write a fic about it, who knows.
> 
> As usual: I have a [tumblr.](http://ossseous.tumblr.com)


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